


Providence

by Ratzinger



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fate, Free Will, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Magic, Mythical Britain, Origins, Pantheism, Plot, Underused Plotlines, Unfinished Plotlines, Unresolved Issues, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 14:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ratzinger/pseuds/Ratzinger
Summary: It is true that she does not think much of prophecies, but his hair is the colour of wheat, and he cannot die today.And this is by her choice, and hers alone.





	Providence

Cool water washes up against her thighs–refreshing, comforting.

She has always found her way here in her upsets, seeking refuge in the very source of the power in her veins. There is no home for her to return to, but she does have this. In truth, however, it is much like kissing the statue of the Lord; a child’s delusional craving for closeness with a lifeless icon. Hers is a dying craft, squashed by the turning tide. It is among her blood that she could have had a chance at a more care free life, with trials and tribulations that a part of her would gladly exchange for the life that is. At the same time, it is that smell and glow of wheat, brushing gently against her cheeks, which she is trying so desperately to forget. Something, she thinks, her task will now hardly allow.

His true intentions are impenetrable to her. She wonders, which parts in which fates Myrddin thinks she is meant to play, and if he has considered what his deeds have wrought of her own.

 

\--

 

It’s late.

 

Uther pours the wine with shaking hands. It’s an unfamiliar lethargy that accompanies his movements tonight. They had shared this drink after his brother’s greatest victory over the Saxons to date, on the eve of Uther’s coronation, and after the birth of Catia. Is it really the Duke of Cornwall’s death in battle that is to give way to another such occasion?

Despite this bewilderment he shows, Vortigern notes that his brother’s eyes tonight are charged with exceptional fire.

 

‘I-I have a son,’ he mutters.

 

His disbelief is immense. So is Vortigern’s.

 

‘I…-‘

 

Before the king can repeat himself, Vortigern has clasped him around the shoulders, and pulls him into a tight embrace. In the process, he spills the wine.

 

–-

 

The winds in the south gather under heavy skies and pick up tremendous speed until they release upon the earth in one sultry breath. Men seem to think that they reflect the moods of their deities. That wind is laced with higher powers. It changes very little, though. Many new people settle on these shores nowadays, and they worship gods and powers she has no experience with.Their worship falls on deaf ears; she is yet to see the Christian god perform a miracle the likes of which nature has in abounds. But that is the way men like it, she supposes. They are afraid of the different, the strange; a power without a human face confounds them and robs them of the opportunity to control its tale.

Old pacts, shred and torn asunder, have reversed their protection upon her kind-no longer uniting them with the fae, but driving them into exile. That future has become inevitable by now. They’ve been hunted in droves ever since one of them reached for power. A traitor, a murderer. It is thoroughly ironic then that men’s High King, her people’s executioner, is, in truth, as strange to them as she is.

The wind, sly and pleasant on the mind, nods along in an indifferent lull.

 

‘ _It has been_ _prophesied._ _’_

 

But she does not think much of prophecy. It does its thing, and she does hers, and in the end, tales of others will decide whether something was fated, or not.

 

\--

 

She is being carried, passed between strangers’ hands like a sack of flour. Within a flurry of noise, tears, and confusion, she loses sight of her sisters. They’re taking them away, and she is crying. Crying uncontrollably. She wants for her mother. Asks after her, but is told nothing. She must tell her, tell her what she has seen.

 

_Father is dead._

 

They are taking them away from her. The intensity of her father’s eyes stays with her for the rest of her life.

 

\--

 

Fatherhood changes Uther.

His lust for blood and glory falls into dust as so much wasted ambition. It surprises even himself, and from time to time, an impression of deep guilt crosses his features. As his recklessness gives way to caution, it brings him closer still to his subjects, and their respect and fear slowly becomes laced with love. For the first time ever, he has acquired something he dreads to lose more than life itself. And therein he wants to start building his legacy.

Few dare, or even know, to remind him of how he came about all this.

Igraine dances with her husband, radiant and beaming at him as if he was her very first, young love. It must certainly help that Uther is doing his best to be the kind of man who she could forgive, who could reassure her that what else but fate could have tangled their lives so. It surprises Vortigern how the queen can take her newly found position with so little heartache. That she would agree to this, swallow his feeble justifications and yield to the desires of a king who did not think twice over raising his armies for another man’s wife.

 

_As if by the hand of Providence._

 

To him, the way Igraine looks at Uther seems as if she had been bewitched. And he envies how things have gone Uther’s way, yes, but Vortigern does not believe in fate; only necessity.

 

\--

 

Standing knee-deep in lake water, she waits.

 

 _Acknowledgement_ _? Permission?_

 

In the eyes of the Lady, she is no one. Mage. A woman of a dying world, clad in a worn travel cloak and old sandals. What has she to offer?

They say life, given or taken, symbolises the strongest of bonds, although it comes with a terrible cost. Was hers taken or given? She would not be _her_ , if not for the old man. She would not be _here_ , looking for the boy, whose conception inadvertently drew the early blueprints of her life. These decisions, made by others, had not been up to her. But they have made her hungry. For answers, for justice, for vengeance. She has hungered with longing for so long that she must begin now, lest she starve and wither within herself.

Rage walks with her, and it may yet ruin her someday, but not today. She has a debt to pay-a debt she had never asked to take upon, but which she nevertheless _wants_ to repay. If that boy can-i _s meant to_ -assist her, then so be it. Patiently she will go about her task.

 

_One foe at a time._

 

Within the mists of Annwn, she waits for the Lady to accept her offering and ease her path through these breaking lands.


End file.
